Game Over
by butterfly of kaos
Summary: The End Of The World Is Nigh! The Apocalypse or apocralypse, depending on your viewpoint, is here... Matt Browning, geek extraodinaire, is stuck in the middle. And Death, as always, comes as the end. Rated for mild language.


Notes: This story was originally written for my GCSE English Coursework (creative writing). I've changed it to become a fanfic by adding Death at the end. It's also, I hope, in the style of Terry Pratchett.

Thanks v. much to Caethilia Mordon for the Latin grammar correction!

Rating: The rating is T, for mild bad language. Please tell me if you think it's inappropriate.

OK, enjoy! And please review.

**Game Over **

"Oh bugger".

A singularly unromantic phrase to end the trials and tribulations of mankind, but as is all too often the case in history it was the first, and coincidentally last, thing that came into the speaker, Matt Browning's head. This momentous occasion in the history of man, however, passed unnoticed while all substance in space caved in on itself, the insignificant planet called Earth being unceremoniously snuffed out of existence. The so-called "apocalypse", the end of life as_ life_ knows it, has arrived.

**That Morning: 3 hours and 30 minutes remain**

The keeper of ravens at the Tower of London was cowering against the wall as the head beefeater (a vegetarian, ironically enough) began a loud and forceful tirade against him and the world in general.

"What are we going to do?" he shouted with an unnervingly maniacal glint in his eye. "Everyone knows the saying: the monarchy will end if there aren't three ravens at the tower. Quite a few nutcases actually believe it, including _Her Majesty_, I might add! There've been ravens here since eleven hundred and forty-two! I'll be made into a laughing stock".

He stopped, more from lack of breath than anything. The keeper risked a sentence; "I don't know what happened; their wings were definitely clipped …" He trailed off under the beefeater's penetrating glare. Yup, he decided, getting sacked was definitely on the cards.

At that same moment, Tim Beaumont, seismologist and professional layabout, was having a beautiful dream. He was, though you couldn't tell this from his current activity, part of the team grudgingly commissioned by a Congressional Committee to measure earth tremors at Yellowstone National Park. He was doing what he did for approximately fourteen hours a day, namely sleeping and noisily snoring as he did so. From the midst of this reverie, he suddenly jerked awake, to the sound of a dull but persistent drone. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and walked dazedly to the coffee machine. It was only then that he saw the seismograph. His eyes widened, and he was suddenly, painfully, alert.

"Oh God".

**2 hours remain**

Janet Tranthem was also in for a shock that day when she looked through the observatory telescope. Had she not been trained through experience to do so, she would not have believed her eyes. Trying vainly to maintain an aura of calmness, she turned to her boss.

"Uh, sir… you might want to put off your coffee break."

Several minutes later, she was still trying to convince him of three things. One, that the asteroid had just appeared out of nowhere; two, that it was not just her eyesight; three, that it was coming their way.

Time is, as usual, against mankind. The world will end at noon precisely, due to the unyielding inclination in nature towards the dramatic. However, neither the sudden eruption of the Yellowstone Super Volcano, nor the collision of a vast asteroid with London, will really have brought about the end. Life's luck will really run out when the sun and every other star in the universe abruptly cease to exist. There won't be any breathtaking explosions or implosions. They will simply blink out, like unseeing eyes, plunging the solar system into true and utter darkness.

**30 minutes remain**

Meanwhile, an oblivious Matt Browning had just woken up. He rolled over, crushing his already battered glasses in the process. As most men are wont to do in their ineptitude, he groaned, shrugged, and got up, leaving whatever mess he had created to his long-suffering landlady to sort out. He began his normal Sunday morning routine, boiling the kettle and putting a bowl of soggy porridge in the microwave, absent-mindedly setting the timer on twenty-five minutes longer than he needed. He found his Star Trek slippers underneath the kitchen table and slipped them on, quietly cursing his bedraggled pet tabby, Sméagol, as he realised that one of them was slightly sodden.

Perhaps this is an appropriate moment to explain that Matt Browning was probably the biggest geek in Britain. This was not astonishing to anyone who had met his parents. They had spent most of their lives organising sci-fi conventions and, on the occasion of their marriage, had legally changed their names to Galadriel and Obi-Wan. In the 2001 census of Great Britain, they both formally declared their religion as "Jedi". It was therefore surprising when they decided not to cripple their son's future by calling him Wolverine and merely named him Matthias. What they had failed to realise was that this name would still give his peers license to mock him for the rest of his life. Matt had been cursing their lack of foresight ever since. . Nevertheless, he had still carried on the tradition they had set by filling his flat with all things tacky, bleeping, flashing and sci-fi.

**20 minutes remain **

He sat down at his ancient yet trusty Windows '98 computer, which flickered into life after a few false starts. He was eventually connected to the internet and placed a bid on eBay for the _limited edition X-men: Cyclops' visor _which he had been secretly coveting ever since he had seen it on offer, ten days previously. He hardly noticed the large red headline urgently scrolling across the top of the screen. There were twenty minutes left on the bid, but he was prepared to sit it out.

**15 minutes remain**

Just then, his phone started ringing. He picked up and was surprised to find that it was his mum.

"Turn on your television, Matt. You have to see this."

"What?" he replied, but the line had been cut off. He dutifully walked into his bedroom and turned it on. He saw a flustered news-lady with the headline "Yellowstone Super Volcano about to erupt" written in front and sighed. As he changed the channel, he grumbled, "Oh mum, not another end-of-the-world movie." It was only when he realised that every channel was showing the very same images that he sat up, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. The next headline hit him like a bucket of ice. "Asteroid to hit Central London".

He ran down the twisting stairs of his apartment block with his head pounding and banged open the main doors, ignorant of or perhaps just indifferent to the fact that he was still in his pyjamas. Outside, London was an alien world. The street was empty of cars and silent, except for the occasional cry of despair from the many people just standing and staring up at the bleak sky above them. Matt looked up as well, dread filling his soul, and saw it. Straight away, and with the naked eye, he could see the massive ball of rock and flame hurtling towards him.

**5 minutes remain**

He ran upstairs again, unable to stand outside, waiting for the inevitable. He accepted then that he would not survive this onslaught. He wondered if he should warn his cyber friends on Yahoo Community of what was about to happen, or if this would mean that his rivals would forget to bid on his Cyclops imitation visor, or even if he would have time to reread his beloved first edition of The Lord Of The Rings. He supposed not.

It was at this time that, as he generally did when he was feeling especially panicky, he remembered all of the embarrassing moments in his life that he had tried to forget.

**1 minute remains**

He remembered when he had sent a love letter to the girl whom he adored in the year above him at secondary school. She had sent it back, with the spelling and grammar mistakes corrected.

**40 seconds remain**

He was 17 and at a Star Trek convention. The organiser (for once it was not his parents) was talking to him and had a fine set of Spock-like pointy ears.

"Where did you get those ears?"

It unfortunately turned out that they were, in fact, the organiser's own ears.

**30 seconds remain**

He was talking to a friend using his mobile while on the toilet and had, during a tricky manoeuvre, dropped it into the toilet bowl. Subsequently, he had to both explain to the friend why he had unexpectedly been cut off and claim for a replacement phone from his company while maintaining that it had "fallen in a puddle".

**20 seconds remain**

At yet another convention, he realised, just two minutes before his carefully prepared speech on international relations between Superman and Spidey fans, that he had left the speech with his mum and taken his weekly shopping list instead.

**10 seconds remain **

He sat down on his bed, clutching Sméagol in his arms and burying his face in the soft ginger fur.

**5 seconds remain**

Ding went his microwave timer. His porridge was burnt to the sides of the bowl.

**1 second remains**

He didn't want to die.

**Game over**

"Oh bugger"

INDEED said a voice behind his shoulder. Matt had never heard a voice that could speak in capital letters before, but this voice certainly could. He could hear the extra "shift key" going down for each letter.

He turned to see a shadowy figure by the doorway, covered in a black cloak from which only two bony hands protruded, holding a scythe. Its face, if it had one, was completely obscured by shadow.

"Wow!" whispered Matt. "You really do look like a Ring Wraith."

YOU'D BE SURPRISED HOW MANY PEOPLE DON'T TELL ME THAT, replied the voice.

Matt ignored this. "So I'm dead. Why did you bother to come to me?"

DEATH COMES TO EVERYONE. A blatant lie, but death figured that it would be easier to understand and less terrifying than the truth: the universe is unpredictable and doesn't need a reason. This is why the Eurovision Song Contest came into being.

Behind the figure, something flashed on the computer.

I THINK THE EXPRESSION IS "YOU HAVE GOT A MAIL". Death had not spent long enough studying mankind in order to understand the intricacies of technology-speak.

"Great, did I get the bid?" Matt wondered as he crossed the short distance to the desk and clicked on his inbox. There was one new message. The space for the sender was blank, and in the subject box, it simply said "_mors morationem odit"._

DEATH HATES DELAY, the voice translated.

Matt grinned weakly. "Curt but clear, huh?"

I'M A STICKLER FOR PUNCTALITY.

And as the grey walls of the apartment block faded around him, Matt wondered with detachment whether he'd finally find out if "The Lord of the Rings" really was a true history of ancient Britain, and J.R.R. Tolkien was really a reincarnation of Frodo…


End file.
